Tears And Firewhiskey
by CherryCakes
Summary: She sat staring blankly ahead whilst memories swirled around her head.   She'd told him not to do it.  But he did it anyway. And now she'd never get her Cedric back. She reached for the bottle.


**A/N: Hiya! this is just a one shot. I don't think I'm going to write anything else related to this. The _italics_ are memorys, just so no one gets confused.**

**I own nothing.  
**

* * *

She'd told him not to do it.

She'd told him not to put his name in.

But he did, of course.

She knew he would.

Nobody ever kept promises in reality did they?

* * *

_It was just after the beginning of term feast. All anyone could talk about was the upcoming Tournament. I hated it. I hated the mounting excitement and anticipation of something that would inevitably end with someone either dead or seriously injured. I spotted Cedric up ahead and fell to her knees as a vision overcame me._

_Cedric; cold, expressionless, dead. Dead in the center of the Quidditch pitch surrounded by curious, tall hedges filled with shadow._ _Surrounded by blurred faces displaying varying amounts of horror and fear. It began to rain._

_I blinked rapidly and looked up into the eyes that a moment ago I'd seen blank and empty, but were now filled to the brim with concern which changed quickly into alarm at the tears that had begun to stream down my cheeks._

_"Are you okay," he asked, clearly quite wary of the crying girl._

_I nodded slowly and then suddenly grabbed a fistful of his robes and looked imploringly up into his eyes._

_"Stay away from the maze. Please Cedric. When you see a maze, stay away, please, please," I said with a desperate breathy-ness in my voice, begging him to do as I asked. I didn't want him to die. Not him. Not anyone._

_"Okay, okay," he said clearly just trying to quieten the delirious girl, "I'm going to take you up to the hospital wing."_

_Without waiting for an answer he scooped my tiny figure up, thinking me in no fit state to walk, and strode briskly toward the hospital wing and a calming solution that was no doubt waiting there for her. It always was. I sat there staring at the wall whilst Cedric told the matron what had happened. Madam Pomfrey left to get me a calming solution and a dreamless sleep potion in a routine sort of way. Cedric came over to my bedside and pressed his lips gently against my hair._

_"Feel better," he whispered, his breath tickling my forehead as he lingered for a moment, before he pulled back and strode from the ward and from my sight._

* * *

I starred blankly across the Ravenclaw common room, not taking in any of the elegant royal blue decor that I usually stopped to admire.  
Not even stopping to glare at Luna Lovegood who was winding her way between sofas, armchairs and tables toward me. I told her I didn't want to talk to her.

He never told Cho Chang the he loved her. He told me.

* * *

_He shouted her name from behind her to get her attention. I whirled around, plait cracking like a whip, and faced him dead on._

_"You have to listen to me Cedric. If you put your name in that cup I can guarantee you won't survive. Cedric, Just listen to me for once in your life." I said pleadingly.  
_

_"No. I'm sorry, really I am, but I want this so bad and I'm not giving it up no matter how much i love you."_

_"But you must! Wait...Did you just say you loved me?"_

_He stood very still for a moment, contemplating if it was worth lying to the formidable 5'2 witch in front of him. It wasn't. She'd know anyway."Yes I did." he said quite simply._

_Needless to say I was rather taken aback. I was expecting denial._

_He cleared the space between us in two strides and quite literally swept me off my feet, being a whole foot taller than me. He kissed me. That snapped me out of my trance. It wasn't, as many kisses are, harsh and bruising, but soft and caring, as if he was afraid I would break or melt away at any moment. It was bliss.  
_

* * *

A tear rolled slowly down my cheek. I didn't bother wiping it away. There wasn't any point. I reached for the bottle of Firewhiskey I'd nicked from my dads store cupboard at Christmas. The stars visible through the window seemed to mock me as I was engulfed another memory.

* * *

_We were laid side-by-side on the grass by the lake, me and Cedric. It was the night after the first task and he was staring up at the clear, inky night sky. It was beautiful, and yet I could not look at it. I was going to destroy that beauty._

_"Cedric." I said softly._

_"mmm?" he turned on his side to face me._

_"I can't be with you. I can't take it." I said clearly staring intently at the stars that until a few moments ago i could not stand the sight of. But I didn't really see them, I just didn't want to look at him._

_"What?" He asked, his voice full of hurt._

_"I can't do this. I'm sorry. If I stay with you like this then when the inevitable comes it will tear me apart. I'm sorry." I said, hating myself for hurting him._

_"But I love you." He said, as if that solved everything._

_I sat up an turned to him, looking into those storm cloud coloured eyes that love so dearly. "I know. And I love you, you are my sky, but staying with you will cause me more heartache then I could bare , were as if I have less memories of you it may hurt a little less. Or it may hurt a lot more, but I have got to try to prevent it because otherwise I won't live through it. My heart may continue beating, but I shall simply go through the motions of life without truly living it. I can't put my sister through that. I'm sorry."_

_He didn't say anything, he simply looked at me, lost for words._

_I couldn't stand to sit there underneath the vast, open, trouble-less sky. It felt as though the very air was judging me. I stood and walked back up to the castle, tears streaming down my face. I looked back once I reached the castle doors to see Cedric sat on the same patch of grass staring after me with a look of torture on his face._

* * *

Through the intervening months I felt a stab of pain, like someone had torn away another piece of my soul. By this time I was sobbing. Why him? Why was it that the one person who never failed to make me smile, make me laugh, make me whole, had to be stolen away from the world, from me. I downed the last half of the bottle in my palm, jumped to my feet and threw the bottle across room were it shattered at the base of a bookcase. Sinking to the floor i practically howled with grief, tearing at the skin of my arms like a mad woman, unable to control myself. A pair of arms wrapped themselves around my shoulders, and pulled me down onto the owners lap were i sobbed for god knows how long until I became aware that the person who's lap I was occupying was stroking my hair and making little 'shh' -ing noises. It was Luna. I pushed myself up off of her lap and wiped the salty residue off my cheeks. For several minuets we sat in silence, until she broke it.

"You loved him." It wasn't spoken as a question, but I nodded regardless. "And he loved you."

"Yes" I choked out.

Luna nodded and stood up, pulling me to my feet with her. She lead me to the door to the west tower staircase. I shot her a puzzled look.

"You need your sister." she said simply, leading me down the fith floor corridor.

* * *

For the next three years, the tear stains never left my face but, unlike Cho, I didn't snivel and sob or try to hide the tears, I just let them fall. Each one dedicated to the only man who could make them disapear.

My Cedric.

Now, during the final battle, death eaters closing in around me, I'd had enough. My sister had grown stronger in the past year. She'd survive without me now. She had Seamus to help her through it, to protect her. That isn't my responsibility anymore. She'll understand, I know she will.

The figure directly ahead of me pointed his wand at my chest and shouted the words that will kill me, that killed my Cedric. I felt no fear. I felt anticipation.

As life was wiped from my body I heard the voice that had haunted me every moment of my life whispering the words that he so often told me.

"I Love you, Padma."

Yes Cedric Diggory never loved Cho Chang. He loved Padma Pital.

_Fin_


End file.
